The Easy Way to Make Unicorn Food at Home
By Katherine Sacks. Photos by: Chelsea Kyle and courtesy of Instagram.
Okay, so Starbucks is now making a Unicorn Frappuccino, which means unicorn food is officially no longer cool, right? (OMG, right.) But if you still can't get enough of rainbow-colored drinks, or unicorn toast, or unicorn ramen (yep, that's a thing) for that matter, keep calm my friends, because there's an at-home, couldn't-be-easier way to make any unicorn food you want.
While many "Unicorn" foods—including the much-hyped latte and Starbucks' new, limited-time-only whirlwind of colors—feature ingredients like beet juice, spirulina powder (aka algae), and maqui berry powder (a "super fruit" from Patagonia), those ingredients are not only fairly uncommon, they're also not that delicious.
But for something that actually tastes good while still offering a palette of colors, turn to freeze-dried fruit. Self-described color-obsessed blogger and food stylist Adeline Waugh is oft credited with kicking off the whole Unicorn foods trend thanks to her beautiful pastel toasts, which she originally dyed with beet juice. But she's a big fan of using freeze-dried fruit powders to expand her color options.
"I started to wonder if I could make equally bright and beautiful colors using other ingredients," she says. "I experimented and started using turmeric, chlorophyl, spirulina, and freeze-dried fruit powder, painted them all on toast, and my followers pointed out that the colors resembled that of a unicorn! From there, unicorn toast was born and kind of just took off."
Besides being much tastier (IMHO beet juice and spirulina have a funky, earthy flavor that you seriously have to be in the mood for), using freeze-dried fruits is stupid easy. Simply turn the dried fruits into powder by grinding them in a food processor, then mix the powder into yogurt, milk, ice cream, icing, or whatever you want to give the power of rainbow color.
Freeze-dried fruits give a natural way to dye just about anything: want rainbow-colored sprinkles? Need purple frosting? Want a #millennialpink cake?! So sick of avocado toast? Turn your cream cheese/cottage cheese/yogurt spread pink! Purple! Yellow! Green! Freeze-dried fruits to the rescue, making all your Unicorn dreams come true.
"People have always loved brightly colored foods," says Waugh. "It's beautiful to look at and a great way to make healthy food fun and enticing." Lately she's been branching out to "Mermaid toast" (a whimsical, sparkly green, gray, and blue spread that she says "mimics the ocean") and "plant toast" (topped with kale cut-outs of plant shapes). Because when it comes to color, there really are a rainbow of possibilities.
Get this recipe: Homemade Sprinkles
This story originally appeared on Epicurious.
More from Epicurious:
11 Ingredients You Should NEVER Refrigerate
12 Lightning-Fast Chicken Dinners to Make Now
